72 C20 Miss Olive

[Nomadicflyer]

Hello, Notsolo! Thanks.

That dash.... man, I redid the dash. Acutally, I tapped out and had a buddy do it. He did a great job, but then dirt came up outta no where and while there are no scratches, there is dirt. I'll cut that down as best I can before putting in the windshield. The dash refuses to cooperate!

I had the same scratches come up again, this time on the cab exterior. I put down two coats of color on the cab, and found the same stupid scratches. I had used 600 for the prep, by hand and with DA and then I used red 3m scuff pads. Apparently, I use too much pressure when using the red pads, and end up with scratches.

I took a step back, went over everything with a DA and an intermediate pad with 600, and it came out great. Go figure. I really like how the intermediate pad worked with the DA. No red scuff pad for this guy, I guess I don't know my own strength.

[Nomadicflyer]

Paint heater:

It's below zero outside. The truck is warm enough to paint, the shop is warm enough to paint, but the paint is too cold. I have a painter friend that is focused on making sure everything is the same temperature.

Here's the bush pilot answer for keeping the paint warm. An oil catch pan and an electric tea pot. Paint stayed just a few degrees warmer than the shop for the spray. All worked out.

[notsolo]

I went with a custom mix on my dash and most of the plastic parts in the cab. Tintable U-Pol Raptor bed liner, is urethane undercoat I added 50% urethane paint instead of the 10% recommended, Reduced and sprayed with 1.8 tip. Ends up with a matte finish. Color is off but it is more likely to be water resistant which is what I wanted under the windshield. Photo's hard to see the matte finish.

[Nomadicflyer]

Just ordered the vinyl floor mat. It sounds like a few folks had good luck with this one:

http://www.stockinteriors.com/molded...=31&ModelId=88

Brothers had a rubber mat, but it didn't go back under the seats and tank. I needed something that covered as much as possible.

I've gotten ready for the mat, by putting in the mass loaded vinyl. Seemed like the right thing to do. I first taped the seams and applied POR 15, then measured out the vinyl and put it in. It helped to put a few halogen lights under the truck, as it was in the negatives when I did this. Heating things up helped. Made it more comfy, anyway. This was one of the more enjoyable chores. The roller really helped.

[Nomadicflyer]

Holey Moley, Ed! That looks fantastic! I really like the look and texture on the door panel.

My door panels are pretty crusty. They've been painted by the PO, and this is cracking and flaking off. I need to fix that, somehow. The panels themsevles are in good shape, as far as I can tell. I was thinking of going after them with a stiff brush, just to see what would happen. What would you suggest?

I imagine that the color would be much darker than desired, once mixed with the liner material? I should stick with black, I guess.

[notsolo]

Hey Kevin Moving right along, nice to have a clean project. M-L-V is looking good, what brand is it, and is there adhesive on 1 side or not?....If your thinking of doing some undercoating/ bed liner. U-POL Raptor kit is 4 plastic containers a qt of hardner and a shuts gun that spits out the texture. Black is available....If you were going to try my mix you would need some black urethane to add to it..Also a cheap harbor freight gun 1.8 tip.....I bought some red Scotch brite disc's 6" diameter, would be an option for cleaning the flaky plastic without damaging it. I will look for a source.. I can get a better photo of the door panels the original grainy pattern is still there. (I ASSUME) the black U-POL is the same texture / consistency as the tintable, thick almost paste like no lumps ....Ed. http://www.tptools.com/U-Pol-Raptor-...(25+oz)+bottle

[Nomadicflyer]

Thanks for the door help! I really like how yours turned out.

You asked about the Vinyl, I found it on Amazon. Now that I've looked up my order, I see it's butyl sheet. I think I went this way because it was 80 mil thick, came recommended and cost effective. Here's the link:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

They offered several varieties. This one has adhesive backing and thick foil in a quilted design. It really helps if it's warm when you put it on.

Doors: I took a short cut today, at the suggestion of my paint supplier. He figured a power washer would work to take the flaking and cracking paint off of the plastic door panels. It worked really well. The crusty black paint came off to reveal green door panels underneath. Not the right color green, but fairly nice, anyway. I washed with soap and water, then wax and grease remover and put on two coats of "SEM plastic/vinyl/fabric color coat". If this doesn't hold up, I'll clean them off and use your process to coat the panels. Pics to follow.

[Nomadicflyer]

Bumpers:

Scuffed the bumpers and painted white. The front bumper ended up wrinkling. The back bumper came out pretty well. I've had such a problem through out this project with wrinkling paint during the color and clear coat. Each time was when I tried to scuff and recover existing paint....

This time it wrinkled over epoxy primer. I sanded and scuffed the front bumper, put epoxy primer on to help even out the color before shooting white. One spot started to wrinkle. I'll hit that tomorrow.

Looks like I didn't get a finished pic of the bumpers. I'll get that when I open up the shop tomorrow. The back bumper is white on the vertical faces, black horizontal. The whole thing is in undercoated, I'm hoping the paint will adhere. It was plenty scuffed.

[Nomadicflyer]

Took care of a few odds and ends, as well... Getting the small stuff done!

The hood hinge was sand blasted for wrinkling during an earlier shoot. Epoxy primer, base and clear went on tonight. No further wrinkling on this piece. It seems as long as I take it down to bare metal, I can avoid wrinkling.

Pop Quiz: Any idea what the z channel bar with 4 holes lives? I had to look that up in my assembly drawing book. It had been too long since tear down, I forgot. When I saw where it went, I had a "Doh" moment.

[notsolo]

Z-bar is for the drivers side inner fender bottom, braces around the steering column. If the inner fenders are black this will be a nice contrast. I painted parts with the same gusto not remembering where they went. SEM is what normal people would use on plastic parts. They turned out fantastic. I Looked up the new repo's they are $200+ shipping.

[Nomadicflyer]

No kidding, when I saw how much those repro's were, I figured I could put a few hours into the ones I had!

Points for the part ID! It took me some time thumbing through the build book to find it. I painted it the same color as the wheel tubs. Now everything but the engine is clean under the hood! Haha! Give the wife a year or two enjoying the new wrappings before I tear it all off the frame and go after the frame and drive line. My learning curve will be much less with that project.

Today I fix the hood, pull the fenders back off and do some engine work. Replace exhaust seals, heater box, speedo cable and such. New shocks, flex brake lines, etc. Then comes the wiring harness.

Question: I have a donut exhaust seal that keeps blowing out on me. I thought the nuts were backing out, because they would be missing, so I put in some bolts with safety wire. The bolts stayed put, but the exhaust seal still blew out. Is there any other reason for that to happen beyond an alignment issue between the headers and the Y pipe? My next step was to cut off the flange and put a new one on, with a fresh alignment.

Thanks!

[notsolo]

Original ram horn manifolds? Or headers.? I know nothing about headers. There are sold steel donuts for exhaust ram horns, regular 1,s compress some to help alignment, I think there are several other kinds/ grades...

[Nomadicflyer]

Original Ram's Horns is what's in there. I've been using a malleable seal that looks to be made of up of spiralling material, chamfered.

[Nomadicflyer]

Front bumper:
I had wrinkle on the last coat. Wetsanded with 600, sprayed over with sandable primer X3 coats, brought it down and smoothed it in. 3 thin coats of base white with extra drying time between coats, 4 coats of clear. Turned out ok. Whew. That was the last big part I had to paint. Time for a beer!

A shot of the rear bumper. That was finished last night.

[notsolo]

Hey Kevin A couple other idea,s... exhaust donuts? Anything blocking the muffler, pipes etc? How are the motor mounts ,is the engine moving causing strain on the exhaust? Bumpers came out nice, you have some more clean parts to bolt on.

[GR8-68]

This is going to be one beautiful ride, I love the colors

[Nomadicflyer]

Thanks, Ed! Thanks, Larry!

I looked at the routing of the pipes.... it comes close to the drop arm just behind the axle. Not sure the proper name for it, but the arm in question comes off the frame on the left side and attaches to the axle on the right, the exhaust is in between the axle and the drop arm. Exhaust shows sign of at least one occurrence of rub. Beyond that, it's clear. I just keep thinking that it needs a little flex... this thing is so tight to the frame it might as well be welded to it! Now that I have everything in place, the exhaust pipe sure looks like it's aligned to the exhaust manifold at the 3 hole flange. If it's off, it's only by 1/2 an inch or so. With that donut sleeve to guarantee alignment, I'll find out in a moment.

Putting on one new exhaust manifold for cracks, the other came off for the donut seal. By the end of the shift, I'll have both manifolds back in, with new gaskets/donuts/donut sleeeves, new hardware and if time is left, I'll cut the pipe straps and put in rubber flex. I have one valve cover gasket replaced, the other to go.

New flex brake lines ordered from Inline tubing, for the back axle and front caliper hoses. Hoping to see the new vinyl floor from Classic this upcoming week. Hoping to start on the new fuse block for the AAW wiring harness tonight, when my partners in crime show up

Pic of the partners in crime: we're either painting, or there's a bank about to be robbed!

Kevin

[Nomadicflyer]

All,

I'm putting in a new wiring harness, and this relay is left all alone without a plug from the new harness. At least, so far. Maybe one of the other harnesses has one. Anyone recognize what this is? I think it's a headlight low/high relay, or maybe the horn.

The pic is the old harness, before removal.

Thanks!

[notsolo]

Yep horn relay. Nice to have a support crew for your build.

[Nomadicflyer]

Thanks, Ed! Copy the horn relay. I'm sure a connection will pop up further into the procedure for this.

Crew: They keep me motivated. For some reason, I'm slower when nobody's watchin'! After a few months of going it on my own, I'm running outta gas more often.

[Nomadicflyer]

Wiring:

Started pulling the wiring. Documented what was there, and pulled it!

Cut the hole for the new power block.

Put the new power block in.

I chose to put in bolts with self locking nuts to hold the block in. I hate lag bolts.

Been marking and double checking wires and connectors for the last few hours... almost done with the first kit (out of 5 or 6?).

[Nomadicflyer]

Had to visit Fastenal to get bolts for the exhaust manifolds. The ones in there were just a tad too short. Seemed that 3/8-16 X 2-1/4 (outside bolts) and x 2-3/4 (inside bolts) were perfect. Nice to have all the exhaust stuff done.

[Nomadicflyer]

Working wiring. AC wiring, at the moment. Wanted to post some questions.

Q1: Working backwards from the blower unit (sheet 27, 14 ORN 52a), what is the appliance on sheet 29/ 14 ORN52A that splits into 4 total conductors? What do the numbers represent 50/72/52A52B? I'm hoping those are wire numbers. These won't mean much since none of the wiring has wire numbers printed on them that I can find.

Q2: Sheet 31, where 14BRN 50 meets a very similar and nearly numerically identical appliance, same question~ how do I know what's going on, here?

I've spent years chasing sparks on airliners. I'm not ashamed to say I'm a bit lost with these diagrams, though. They don't seem to include any of the inner workings, just the plug pin-outs? Is this right?

Thanks for any help! I appreciate it!

[notsolo]

Hey Kevin, did you buy a kit or is this a generic build your own harness? You might want to post in the Electrical section to get some questions answered. I bought the AAW Classic update kit, it has hard to follow instructions but mostly plug and play crimp some wires etc.

[Nomadicflyer]

Morning, Ed. I'm putting in the Classic Update kit, as well. As you said, mostly plug and play. My need to over think things centers mostly around the harness path, trying to remember what the ductwork looks like and how best to miss it. The AC harness tie in is a pain. Thanks for the nudge to post in the electrical section. Totally missed that option.

Kevin